It’s Personal
Zwangsarbeit ist kein Phänomen vergangener Zeiten. Da wir alle in irgendeiner Weise in die moderne Sklaverei verstrickt sind, müssen wir auch alle dringend dagegen aktiv werden.
Elisabeth Ribbans on modern slavery
When I began this column five years ago, I said that it would focus on the human side of business. I never thought that, in the 21st century, I’d need to write about an inhuman side — but with an estimated 40 million people worldwide now trapped in “modern slavery” (a term that should be an oxymoron), the issue cries out to be heard. According to the Global Slavery Index 2018, published by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, about 25 million people are working in forced labour. We are talking about men, women and children sold in public markets, workers tied to their bosses by debts they can’t possibly repay or by threats of violence, girls trafficked into sex and more. A further 15 million, mainly women and girls, are living in forced marriages.
The problem is worst in parts of Africa and Asia, but it touches us all. Products most at risk of being connected to forced labour are computers, mobile phones, clothes, fish, cocoa and sugar cane — items we import to the value of billions of dollars a year.
In September of 2018, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US developed four principles designed to combat modern slavery in global supply chains. It is a welcome step, since Walk Free found that only seven G20 countries had enacted laws to stop business and government sourcing goods and services produced by forced labour.
My own country, the UK, was the world’s first to introduce a Modern Slavery Act, in 2015, but I must admit I thought that, for rich countries, the main issue was exactly as presented above: preventing slave labour abroad. Perhaps it’s easier to believe that those terrible stories of trafficking and cruelty at home make the headlines because they are rare. Sadly, the truth is otherwise.
The latest estimates suggest more than 400,000 people in the US, 167,000 in Germany and 136,000 in the UK are living in modern slavery — far higher than previously believed. Industries affected include farming, construction, hotels and other service sectors. In Britain, 27 per cent of all calls to the Modern Slavery Helpline in 2017 were related to car-wash workers.
Last November, Australia introduced anti-slavery legislation that breaks new ground in being the first to recognize “orphanage trafficking”. This is a vile scam in which parents, mostly in South East Asia, are tricked into giving up their children on the promise of a better life; in reality, they are thrown into institutions and used as bait to attract donations from foreign tourists.
It’s clear that modern slavery is a shape-shifter with many faces. Invisible for too long, fed by poverty, conflict and oppression, this crime calls for action from governments, businesses and individuals because we are all caught somewhere in its chains.